


Dozen

by DelilahBlueEyes



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-05 09:55:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1092535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DelilahBlueEyes/pseuds/DelilahBlueEyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a man who had come through war and loss and countless mistakes, a life filled with love and warmth and roses wasn’t anything to scoff at.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dozen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [snafumoofins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snafumoofins/gifts).



i.

He likes the darker blooms. Deep reds and vivid pinks. They bring to mind the color of her eyes, the stark sheen of her hair. No berries and cream for his love. Belle is contrast and honey and molasses. He pictures her draped all in blood red silk and finds his fingers itching to draw the fabric into reality. He wants to wrap her in the colors of his imaginings and see her skin come alive from within.

 

ii.

Lacey sucked him off the first time she met her father. Her fury at the man’s pretension had melted quickly into eager kisses and a hand down his pants. She’d pushed him back against the bricks that made up the back wall of her father’s shop and knelt between his feet and dug her fingers into his thighs. When he shut his eyes the smell of rotting green things merged with the feel of her tongue pressing him against the roof of her mouth and he laughed to think of his own twisted garden of Eden. He bought her a bouquet of blood red roses afterward, enjoying the ruddy flush of her father’s impotent rage as much as the shy smile and half hearted eye roll he received from her.

“Never took you for the sentimental type, Gold.”

iii.

He bought her a necklace for Christmas. A charming little gold rose charm on a delicate chain that he liked to catch between his teeth and tug at gently until she made him stop for fear of breaking it. Then he’d press his lips to her throat, leave little stinging bites across her creamy skin that made her groan. He’d leave her a bouquet of sucking kisses on her neck. Twelve sweet little love bites to be carried around with her throughout the day. Stinging reminders of his affection that she’d demurely cover with a silk scarf at work. He loved the sight of them as they lay together in the murky light of his bedroom; loved to slide his finger across them and see her eyelids flicker in her sleep.

 

iv.

She woke one morning surrounded by flowers. Dozens, hundreds, thousands. They crowded close around the bed, wide open and shockingly bright. They lined the stairs, they filled the kitchen table, they hung from the light fixtures. Scarlet, black, pink, white, cream, yellow, peach, lavender. The air was heavy with the fragrance of them. She tucked one into her hair when she went to meet him for lunch, and he smiled sheepishly.

“Dove deserves quite a large bonus, doesn’t he?” she asked, but she kissed him and his disappointment at not having the time to carpet his home with petals was forgotten.

v.

Maurice’s sudden decision to stop importing and selling roses mystified the townsfolk. All but two. It made him laugh to picture the old man shuddering with disgust whenever he stopped into the shop to buy his love a gift, though Belle only dropped her head and frowned down at the ground. He tried to remember that it hurt her not to have her father there, and they watched My Fair Lady curled together on the sofa.

 

vi.

He planted roses in the back yard for her. Tall, sprawling, varied rows of bushes around his grounds that bloomed early and often. She insisted on tending them herself, never seeming to care about the thorns that pricked her hands. He looked her over every night, kissed each and every scratch gently as he cleaned them. The serene smile that graced her lips told him an apology was never necessary from him, not for the harm her labor did to her. She was happy.

vii.

He liked to draw his hand through the air and appear at her side with one of her blooms, draw it over her lips or her shoulder. Especially while she washed dishes or read in the warm afternoon light. Her concentration could never quite match his intrusion.

"Stop that," she’d chide him, but color rose in her cheek and her head would tip ever-so-slightly away from him to allow him to continue. He was always careful to clip the thorns from the stems. His gifts would never hurt his lovely girl.

viii.

 

No bloom ever sold by her father could rival the rosy blush of her blood rushing to her skin to meet him like an old friend. He thought sometimes of bottling her essence and selling it to the little princelings about town that may need a wee bit of help in their marital beds, but he’d never share even that much of her with another man. His intoxicating true love was as selfishly kept by him as he was by her. Really, he supposed it was for the best they simply lock themselves away together and be the happier for each other’s company.

 

ix.

She laid a single rose on her father’s grave after the burial. A single perfectly unblemished white rose for remembrance. He’d watched from the kitchen window as she moved from bush to bush to choose it; watched her bow her head over the bloom and lift it to her nose. Her shoulders had trembled beneath her thin sweater, as they did now with his arm around them, and he’d hated to feel all of his comforting words dry up in his throat. He wanted to tell her that fathers made mistakes. He wanted to assure her that her father had loved her, very much. He wanted to tell her that she was forgiven before Maurice had passed, because if nothing else, the man had valued her more than anything.

They stood in the drizzling rain together, and he held her as she cried and the petals of the flower gathered raindrops into their crevices against the cold stone.

 

x.

One rainy afternoon they lay tangled together in bed and he pulled the petals off a rose to tease her with. He pulled the sheet away to bare her stomach and blew the petals back and forth against the dewy skin of her navel, across her breasts. He liked to see goosebumps rise over her, to watch her nipples tighten. Her body was nearly as responsive without her knowledge as she herself was. He noticed the way she seemed to unwind when they were alone, how she reached out to touch him almost subconsciously. Every little display of affection and comfort she showed him went a little further toward easing his worries about their future. Whenever he felt his old anxieties creeping up on him, he’d put his arms around her and feel the way she leaned completely against him and he would be able to breathe again. Two people who loved each other as much as he and Belle were sure to make it.

xi.

They painted the nursery with a mural of roses. Open, wilting, barely budded, bouquets, single blooms in vases, petals, stems, thorns. He enchanted a mobile she’s crafted from her garden to blooms to stay as fresh and vivid as silk. They stood together in the doorway when they’d finished, admiring their work. He was just about to suggest they clean themselves up and have something for dinner when she turned to him with excitement plain on her face. She took his hand and brought it to her stomach and they both held still as their child’s foot bumped against his palm. She laughed delightedly at the amazement that spread across his face. This was a part of being a parent that he’d never experienced, the quiet, close moments between his family and the discovery of the person being formed inside his true love’s body. He could have stood there probing her swollen stomach until they both crumbled to dust, but she was needed her rest and they both needed a shower. The baby would be just as easy to experience while its mother slept.

xii.

A single rose marked the beginning of their relationship, though she never did know quite where it came from. Roses formed the bouquet at their wedding, edged the hem of her gown. Roses scented their days and soothed their child to sleep at night. Roses comforted Belle during times of trouble and brightened up his shop and quickly became the identifying feature about town for one of the Rumplestiltskin family; tucked into a button hole or braided into hair. They sat on the back porch together on warm summer nights, drinking iced tea and talking quietly or sitting in comfortable silence while the roses nodded fragrantly in the darkness around them. Rumplestiltskin kissed his wife’s hair and sat back on the wicker loveseat and found himself as content as he could ever imagine being. For a man who had come through war and loss and countless mistakes, a life filled with love and warmth and roses wasn’t anything to scoff at. Looking ahead, he hoped there would be many years of roses to follow.


End file.
